1
Since, then, the seven brothers despised sufferings even unto death, everyone must concede that devout reason is sovereign over the emotions.
2
For if they had been slaves to their emotions and had eaten defiling food, we would say that they had been conquered by these emotions.
3
But in fact it was not so. Instead, by reason, which is praised before God, they prevailed over their emotions.
4
The supremacy of the mind over these cannot be overlooked, for the brothers mastered both emotions and pains.
5
How then can one fail to confess the sovereignty of right reason over emotion in those who were not turned back by fiery agonies?
6
For just as towers jutting out over harbors hold back the threatening waves and make it calm for those who sail into the inner basin,
7
so the seven-towered right reason of the youths, by fortifying the harbor of religion, conquered the tempest of the emotions.
8
For they constituted a holy chorus of religion and encouraged one another, saying,
9
"Brothers, let us die like brothers for the sake of the law; let us imitate the three youths in Assyria who despised the same ordeal of the furnace.